Embracing The Now Quotes & Sayings

Look at the way you and I have ended up. I renounced and abandoned the world in order to be here and devote myself entirely to the service of Christ far away from people. And now you return to me after embracing Islam, clad in nothing but tunic and waist-cloth, and with nothing to your name but a staff to walk on. Tell me, for Heaven's sake: What is the difference between us? Is not your renunciation of the world the same as mine? And, my dear: Is it not the same rejection of the state of the world and its inhabitants that has impelled both of us to leave everything behind, realizing as we do that there is no hope to be found in this world and that there is nothing left for us but the love of God? — Salwa Bakr

Any consideration of the life and larger social existence of the modern corporate man begins and also largely ends with the effect of one all-embracing force. That is organization - the highly structured assemblage of men, and now some women, of which he is a part. It is to this, at the expense of family, friends, sex, recreation and sometimes health and effective control of alcoholic intake, that he is expected to devote his energies. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Oh, this is the song about the young man who loves a young woman. Has he the right to use such a word as "love"? He knows nothing about life, he knows nothing about her, he knows nothing about himself. All he knows is that he has never felt anything with such force and clarity before. Everything hurts, but nothing is as good. Oh, this is the song about being sixteen years old and sitting on a bus and thinking about her, the one, not knowing that feelings will slowly, slowly, weaken and fade, that life, that which is now so vast and so all-embracing, will inexorably dwindle and shrink until it is a manageable entity that doesn't hurt so much, but nor is it as good. — Karl Ove Knausgard

The most powerful state for a human to be in is the state of embracing completely the reality of what is - Now. It is to say "Yes" to life, which is now and always now. There is a vast power in that "Yes," that state of inner non-resistance to what is. — Eckhart Tolle

Tolerance used to be the attitude that we took toward one another when we disagreed about an important issue; we would agree to treat each other with respect, even though we refused to embrace each other's view on a particular topic. Tolerance is now the act of recognizing and embracing all views as equally valuable and true, even though they often make opposite truth claims. — J. Warner Wallace

Now as they made their way through the exuberantly crowded village, Daisy understood what Westcliff had meant. It was still early evening, and already it appeared that copiously flowing wine had loosened inhibitions. People were embracing, arguing, laughing and playing. Some were laying floral wreaths at the base of the oldest oak trees, or pouring wine at the roots, or ...
"Good Lord," Daisy said, her attention caught by a perplexing sight in the distance, "what are they doing to that poor tree?"
Matthew's hands clasped her head and firmly aimed her face in another direction. "Don't look."
"Was it some form of tree-worship or - "
"Let's go watch the rope-dancers," he said with sudden enthusiasm, guiding her to the other side of the green. — Lisa Kleypas

Singular as it may appear, the sufferer had now contracted a sort of affection for his tormentor, mingled, however, with the intensest loathing and horror. Nor were such discordant emotions incompatible. Each, on the contrary, imparted strength and poignancy to its opposite. Horrible love - horrible antipathy - embracing one another in his bosom, and both concentrating themselves upon a being that had crept into his vitals or been engendered there, and which was nourished with his food, and lived upon his life, and was as intimate with him as his own heart, and yet was the foulest of all created things! — Nathaniel Hawthorne

It doesn't matter to them that we didn't ask to be the way we are; that some of us were born this way and we're only trying to get along and survive like everyone else. No, instead they've got to go out of their way to call attention to the things that set us apart from them instead of embracing the ways we're the same. — Melyssa Winchester

We are now, I believe, on the threshold of a third stage which I call the stage of the sacred marriage. This is the only position we could possibly take and still survive. This is a stage beyond both matriarchy and patriarchy. It involves the restoration to human respect of all of the rejected powers of the feminine. But it is absolutely essential that this restoration should be accomplished in the deep spirit of the sacred feminine. Not only should we invoke the sacred feminine, restore the sacred feminine, but this union between the matriarchal and the patriarchal, the sacred marriage, must be accomplished in the spirit of the sacred feminine for it to be real, effective, rich, and fecund. It must occur in her spirit of unconditional love, in her spirit of tolerance, forgiveness, all-embracing and all-harmonizing balance, and not, in any sense, involve a swing in the other direction. — Andrew Harvey

I never intended to become a commercial filmmaker in the first place. What I do requires time and experimentation. Commercial work is often not the best way to get the most innovative work, because it's about money and marketing. Although advertising is now embracing non-commercial people. — Marco Brambilla

How we perceive the world and how we act in it are products of how and what we remember ... No lasting joke, invention, insight, or work of art was ever produced by an external memory ... Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections between previously unconnected notions, to create new ideas, to share in a common culture: All these essentially human acts depend on memory. Now more than ever, as the role of memory in our culture erodes at a faster pace than ever before, we need to cultivate our ability to remember. Our memories make us who we are. They are the seat of our values and source of our character. Competing to see who can memorize more pages of poetry might seem beside the point, but it's about taking a stand against forgetfulness, and embracing primal capacities from which too many of us have became estranged ... memory training is not just for the sake of performing party tricks; it's about nurturing something profoundly and essentially human. — Joshua Foer

The theme to this year's MSLS is "Embracing the Future, Preserving the Past: The Role of Youth in Nation Building". Now, having organised events like this before, I understand the need for a tagline that is sufficiently grand, sufficiently optimistic and sufficiently vague that all the speakers would be able to relate to and support. Everyone wants to "embrace the future" and no one would deny that the youth have a role in nation building.

But the middle part -- "preserving the past" -- needs some attention. It's necessary, surely, to determine which aspects of the past are worth preserving. And this is a very difficult exercise, because one fundamental problem in our country is that the past is so poorly understood -- and not just by much of the youth but by the establishment as well. — Tunku Zain Al-'Abidin Muhriz

I'd have you see the like this; I'd have you see them very well. Will you? They are clustered around Suzie's Cruisin Trike, embracing in the aftermath of their victory. I'd have you see them this way not because they have won a great battle - they know better than that, every one of them - but because now they are ka-tet for the last time. The story of their fellowship ends here, on this make-believe street and beneath this artificial sun; the rest of the tale will be short and brutal compared to all that's gone before. Because when ka-tet breaks, the end always comes quickly.
Say sorry. — Stephen King

the whole Bible is itself a missional phenomenon. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God. The Bible renders to us the story of God's mission through God's people in their engagement with God's world for the sake of the whole of God's creation. The Bible is the drama of this God of purpose engaged in the mission of achieving that purpose universally, embracing past, present and future, Israel and the nations, "life, the universe and everything," and with its centre, focus, climax, and completion in Jesus Christ. Mission is not just one of a list of things that the Bible happens to talk about, only a bit more urgently than some. Mission is, in that much-abused phrase, "what it's all about. — Christopher J.H. Wright

Dorothy looked at everything as though it might vanish. The bright daily pottery, the spice-jars, the sweep of the staircase, the pigeons in the stable yard. What had been real was now like a thick film, a coloured oilcloth, spread over a cauldron of vapours which shaped and reshaped themselves into shadowy forms, embracing, threatening, glaring. — A.S. Byatt

Gay marriage has jumped out of the closet on to the front page. Everyone from the president of the U.S. to retired four-star general Colin Powell is embracing the issue, now supported by most Americans. Still, a few people, like former First Lady Laura Bush appear to be conflicted. — Kitty Kelley

Acceptance doesn't mean tolerating unhealthy relationships or problem behaviour. In relationships, acceptance has two key qualities. First, it means being willing to recognize that your partner, right here and right now, is struggling too. It means allowing for the possibility that his motivations might be good and constructive, even if it doesn't feel that way. It means not getting caught up in the belief that he's wrong or doesn't care about you, and instead embracing the possibility that he's doing the best he can. He may even be trying to make you happy--but in a way that only makes sense inside the male mind. Acceptance also means embracing the formidable task of empathizing with your partner's struggle when you least want to do so. — Shawn T. Smith

That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true theology. — Thomas Paine

Now that he is no longer here I should be interested in so many things: philosophy, politics, history. I follow the news, read books, but they befuddle me. What he meant to say is not there, for he understood something else, something that was all-embracing, and he could not say it in words but only by living as he did. — Italo Calvino

You get a letter from her agency embracing you into the family that says, 'It is our goal now to help you achieve your dream of being a songwriter, in John's memory.' — Arthur Godfrey

After the baby, I got bigger, and I like it. I like me better now than when I was young and skinny. I don't understand this extreme fashion for being anorexic-skinny. We forgot about women with curves - real women. We're not embracing that anymore. — Anna Netrebko

Now love doesn't stop at death - or if it does, it's a pretty poor sort of love! In fact, grief could almost be defined as the form love takes when the object of love has been removed; it is love embracing an empty space, love kissing thin air and feeling the pain of nothingness. But there is no reason at all why love should discontinue the practice of holding the beloved in prayer before God. — N. T. Wright

Since the soon-to-be outnumber the living; since the living have greater impact on the unborn than ever before thanks to depletion of natural systems, atmospheric disruption, toxic residue, burgeoning technology, global markets, genetic engineering, and sheer population numbers; since our scientific and historic understandings now comfortably examine processes embracing eons; and now that our plan-ahead horizon has shrunk to five years or less - it would seem that a grave disconnect is in progress. Our everhastier decisions and actions do not respond to our long-term understanding, or to the gravity of responsibility we bear. "The — Stewart Brand

Courage is walking forward and embracing others in love even though you may suffer greatly in ways you could never imagine now. Jesus walked that way before you, and he walks that way now with you. That's the way of the cross. — Russell D. Moore

I smelt him, smelt Johnny; for a second I thought - what? That he was there, was with me, that he wasn't...But I realised it was his perfume, the one I'd had made specially for him by an artisan perfumer in New York, his own custom-made one-off blend. It had been hideously expensive but I hadn't cared as long as it had pleased him. It was all intense essential oils, layer upon layer of labdanum, patchouli, vanilla, vetiver, ambrette, frankincense, myrrh, amber, Bulgarian rose absolute, Oud wood - the list was endless and beautiful, like a scented prayer. The woman had said some of the ingredients would keep their fragrance for a hundred years, would never die. Like me, he'd said, like us. I'd put some drops of the heavy dark oil on a couple of cotton wool pads and put them in the box when we got it, now the fragrance - strange, narcotic, archaic - filled the room like his ghost, embracing me in memories. — Joolz Denby

Self-acceptance is a way of viewing oneself compassionately, without condemnation or justification. It is a starting point in life which makes other things possible. It celebrates the fullness of joy of being alive and of being who we are: accepting ourselves, however, does not mean embracing our neuroses or bad habits and celebrating them as if they were virtues. On the contrary, self-acceptance involves loving ourselves enough to accept painful truths about ourselves ... Self-acceptance is, at its simplest, the experience of one's self, here and now, as a complete human being, with all the glories and problems that condition entails. — Don Richard Riso

As Ian popped the lock and opened the car door, he turned to Phoebe. "Can you do me a favour?"
She immediately stepped toward him, fully embracing their new mature relationship. "Of course."
Ian looked pointedly over his own shoulder and said, "Tell me the truth. Does this car make my glowing ass look fat?"
She'd naturally followed the direction of his gaze, but now she looked up, hard, into his eyes. And she smiled back at him despite herself. She even laughed. "You're an idiot."
"When things get too serious, I get a rash."
She pointedly looked back down at his nether regions, despite the fact doing so made her blush. Still, she spoke coolly, dryly. "Not on your ass."
If Ian believed in love, that would've been it for him. Instantly. Enthrallingly. Eternally. Instead, he just laughed. "Thank God for that. See if there's anything remotely clothinglike in the backseat or the trunk. — Suzanne Brockmann

I'm not sure I'll ever know the meaning of life or what comes for us after death, but I know it's more than the hysteria people make it out to be. It's about freeing your soul when no one else can; turning thirty and still feeling like you're seventeen. It's about taking chances on a whim, embracing the rain during the storm, and smiling so damn much that you start to cry. It's never regretting, never forgetting, and always being.
It's kissing underwater and touching in the dark. Loving even when you think it's emotionally impossible and surviving someway and somehow.
It's about living life with a full heart and an overflowing glass.
I live life on the edge. I dream, I care, and I belong.
I know there's a here and now.
I know that I want it. — Nadege Richards

Embrace those parts of yourself that you've skillfully avoided until now. That's your true adventure. — Gina Greenlee

The dimension of space and time, represented by what is transpiring in the here and now, is all that we will ever know. Unlike the continuum of perpetual time and infinite space, everything that we know will experience disruption, dissolution, disintegration, dismemberment, and death. The inevitability of our ending represents the tragic comedy of life. Much of our needless suffering emanates from resisting our impermanence rather than embracing our fate. Only through acceptance of the events and situations that occur in a person's life including suffering, and by releasing our attachments, will a person ever experience enlightenment. — Kilroy J. Oldster

If your heart takes more pleasure in reading novels, or watching TV, or going to the movies, or talking to friends, rather than just sitting alone with God and embracing Him, sharing His cares and His burdens, weeping and rejoicing with Him, then how are you going to handle forever and ever in His presence ... ? You'd be bored to tears in heaven, if you're not ecstatic about God now! — Keith Green

And all of you, all your lives, should be telling those of us in the media leadership positions to tell the whole truth and calling us to complain when we don't. Break this know-nothing pact now and you will have taken as mighty a step as you can as an individual to help see to it that we as a nation move together toward a lively, hopeful, confident, and all-embracing future. — Geneva Overholser

The patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian dispensations, are evidently but the unfolding of one general plan. In the first we see the folded bud; in the second the expanded leaf; in the third the blossom and the fruit. And now, how sublime the idea of a religion thus commencing in the earliest dawn of time; holding on its way through all the revolutions of kingdoms and the vicissitudes of the race; receiving new forms, but always identical in spirit; and, finally, expanding and embracing in one great brotherhood the whole family of man! Who can doubt that such a religion was from God? — Mark Hopkins

But there was a special kind of gift that came with embracing the chaos, even if I cursed most of the way. I'm convinced that, when everything is wiped blank, it's life 's way of forcing you to become acquainted with and aware of who you are now, who you can become. What is the fulfillment of your soul? — Jennifer DeLucy

I've built a solid career there, but America's ten times the size. Now that we're onto the third record, I feel like the stars have aligned and American audiences are embracing my music even more. — Chantal Kreviazuk

The whole society has to recognize the importance of the value in embracing what science is going into the 21st Century. Otherwise, we might as well start packing and moving back into the cave right now, because that's where we'll end up. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

December finds himself again a child
Even as he undergoes his age.
Cold and early darkness now descends,
Embracing sanctuaries of delight.
More and more he stares into the night,
Becoming less and less concerned with ends,
Emblem of the innocent as sage
Restored to wonder by what he must yield. — Nick Gordon

He smiled slowly, as if particularly pleased with her question, and she couldn't help smiling in return. He reached around her, his arms nearly embracing her, and wrote in the notebook on her lap, Very good. Yes, the root ball should be quite big, even so. "Should be?" His breath was warm against her ear. I confess. I've never attempted to transplant a fully grown tree. I shall do so, however, this afternoon. Would you like to watch? If someone had asked her a fortnight ago if she'd like to watch a tree being planted, she would've looked at the questioner quite pityingly. But right now, this moment, she was rather excited at the prospect. Perhaps too many viewings of Caliban's nude chest had addled her brain. In any case she gazed into his thickly lashed brown eyes and smiled brilliantly. "Yes, please." His grin was quick and all-encompassing and, she couldn't help but think, solely for her. — Elizabeth Hoyt

External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now. If the problem is something in your own character, who's stopping you from setting your mind straight? And if it's that you're not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it? - But there are insuperable obstacles. Then it's not a problem. The cause of your inaction lies outside you. - But how can I go on living with that undone? Then depart, with a good conscience, as if you'd done it, embracing the obstacles too. — Marcus Aurelius

Remember children, once I am gone I will be part of it all
Everything will be me and together be free
The songs of the birds will be my voice in joyous refrain
The caress of the soft summer breeze will be my touch from afar
The sunset in glorious golden red hues, my display of love
The soft murmur of the stream as it lulls you to sleep my lullaby
Close your eyes and open your heart that I may touch you.
There shall I dwell ever close, embracing you with every beat of your heart
Smile and feel the joy I share now with you. — Neil Leckman

Letting go doesn't just mean letting go of the past, but letting go of an unknown future; and embracing NOW. — Michelle Cruz-Rosado

Have you ever wondered why we bury and cremate our dead? Nothing to do with hygiene, it's just so we don't have to see the reality of death. You know, the Zoroastrians used to leave their dead in open places for the birds to eat. Now that's a far more honest way to go, don't you agree? Everyone can see what happens. It makes us live our lives more potently. That's how I want to go, at my end: openly. Not ashamed of death, but embracing it. — Cliff James

But since President Obama allowed Colorado and Washington to legalize recreational use and sales of marijuana following initiatives in 2012, the United Stets itself is probably now violating international law. (Because we have traditional been the ones who interpret and enforce these laws, it's hard to know exactly; of course, we say we are not.) And with even federal drug control officials slowly embracing harm reduction officially, we have remained silent on New Zealand's law. — Maia Szalavitz